


Feverish Reflections

by TheDarkFlygon



Series: Caeca Fortuna (Bad Things Happen Bingo) [1]
Category: Inazuma Eleven
Genre: Abandonment, Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - College/University, Best Friends, Families of Choice, Gen, Headcanon, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-18 15:40:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28620453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDarkFlygon/pseuds/TheDarkFlygon
Summary: Tsunami struggles to break a fever in the middle of the night.
Relationships: Tachimukai Yuuki & Tsunami Jousuke
Series: Caeca Fortuna (Bad Things Happen Bingo) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2097189
Kudos: 7
Collections: Bad Things Happen Bingo





	Feverish Reflections

**Author's Note:**

> Just so you know how bad I tried to make this be (and failed), I was watching _Run with the Wind_ 's infamous 20th episode.
> 
> Written for my Bad Things Happen Bingo card:  
> https://thedarkflygon.tumblr.com/post/639403196939403264/here-is-your-card-for-bad-things-happen-bingo  
> Prompt: "Please Don't Leave Me" + Tsunami & Tachimukai
> 
> Wassup BTHB crowd, it's ya boi Fly, back at it with a new hit piece.  
> I'm glad to be taking part in this challenge (again), because it"s always fun to match characters/pairings to some tasty prompts and go wild with them. This one is fairly simple vecause it's a warm-up round and I didn't have that much to say (rip my insp, I'll never be able to match that level of pain), but it's always so fun to write Tsunami and Tachimukai being bros. I feel like we just don't have enough of them as platonic bros. We need more of that and I guess I'll be providing.  
> It's also only my second time writing in Tsunami's POV, I'm realizing (the first being a crack fic I posted earlier this week). It's a shame, really, because he's really cool to write, and coming up with all sorts of things about his siblings is a ton of fun. I hope to be able to shove some more of that into my card because I need to feed myself.  
> Also, yeah, I know: "gee Fly, you're writing about the abandonment issues you've slapped onto Tachimukai _again_?". Yes, yes I am. I've got no excuse, I just find that shit interesting to write. It be like that sometimes.

Truth be told, Tsunami is used to taking care of people. How couldn’t he? He’s the oldest of six, of course he’s learnt to take care of an oopsie or two. He’s helped his parents with sick brothers and hurt sisters countless times before, when he still lived in Okinawa. He’s still giving advice to his younger siblings whenever they text him the wacky hijinks they got into and their consequences to this day, so you can bet he knows what he’s doing when he sees someone is in trouble, no matter what people may think.

He’s been in situations where he’s saved some close calls. A teammate twisted an ankle? He’d be the first on the move upon realizing. Norika got a concussion after someone on the team accidentally shot a little too strongly and she got it in the face? He knew what to do because Etsuko was a wild child, even wilder than him actually, and had done that to herself once. Being the eldest (or damn near so) in so many of his social circles along the years helped him become like that; a fact he’s prided himself in a little.

Tonight is… a bit of an exception to that rule, though.

.

There’s actually one thing he’s never been familiar with, and it’s fever spikes. Illnesses didn’t hit his family had enough for that case to ever rise up and, even during the few training camps or school trips he’s been on, the worst it’d get would just prompt the teachers to intervene while he’d be trying to keep someone in check. Usually, he’d have brushed it off as the sort of things that he’d be a bit careful about would it happen to him or, if it was about others, to make sure to get someone qualified to deal with it alongside him.

It’d have been all fine, would have it been any other day. He’d just make sure the sick person wouldn’t try to struggle against help or just help around as someone else would take care of what he didn’t know. Sure, he did have the occasion to side-eye some of their deeds; but saying he managed to see much before being kicked out of a bedroom or taken away from a scene by a doctor or a nurse would be a overplaying his competence and knowledge on this.

The thing is, right now, he’s on his own trying to deal with whatever his roommate let himself get possessed by.

It’s not even that he hadn’t seen it coming. He may not have, before university, gotten the occasion to know Tachimukai that much, especially since they had both changed since their golden middle school days (they were fifteen and thirteen – you can’t blame then for having at least been through some things in five years); but until now, despite what had happened during their high school years, he was pretty sure he had a firm grasp on his roommate’s personality and habits. Living with someone for a couple months does that to you.

He had seen coming, to some extent, the very thing he’s facing right now. If there’s one thing that’s always been clear about Tachimukai, it’s how much of a hard worker he is, even to the point of self-destruction at times. He’s the kind of guy who only half-listens to you when you tell him that he’s getting tired and should probably get some rest just because he hasn’t finished what he’s doing. He’s also the kind to be _dumb_ enough not to sleep a cold off because he’s got that work shift he’s got to take and that assignment he needs to give back and that book he needs to read and write a report about for whatever class whose name he couldn’t even remember – that kind of guy.

That kind of guy who, right now, is scaring the _shit out of him_.

It didn’t need to get to this point, but it did, because that’s just how things are in his life: stuff happens and he’s got to deal with it, even if he doesn’t like it. He can wish all he wants he could’ve stopped his best friend from literally burning himself out and getting sent to bed jail, but that won’t break his fever and that sure won’t make the night go by any faster to sulk in both of their guilts. He’ll just do what a good big brother does and scold him once he’s conscious enough to know what he’s being told without it entering from one side, getting garbled, and leaving by the other.

Actually, what scares him the most about their current situation is that Tachimukai is barely coherent… that is, when he’s even trying to speak. Most of the time Tsunami attempts to start a conversation so he’s sure he’s not having a comatose roommate on his hands, a situation to which he really has no solution except calling an ambulance and _praying_ , all he gets in return are some unfinished sentences and words he can’t even understand – if they’re words to begin with and not just a mishmash of syllables strung together by the loosest thread in town. It gives him that sensation that he’s losing someone to the claws of something he doesn’t know.

He could be calling for an ambulance or for any sort of help (he believes Nosaka – who’s got some medical knowledge since that’s his major and all – lives only three or four buildings away and could at least give him a tip or two, he’d say), but that’d mean he’d have to leave the room and, well… He may be awake in the middle of the night and hunched over a bed like his mother would be when either of his siblings was sick and he’d try to get a sneak-peek of what was happening to them, it still doesn’t mean he’s willing to abandon this for some semblance of comfort.

Or, at least, he can’t leave the room for longer than a minute or two. He’s wanted to grab his phone that he left charging in his room for a little while, but that’d mean having to leave, and that’s… really not something he wants to do. Not when he’s seen what Tachimukai can somehow pull even when he’s sicker than a dog and afflicted with temperatures only heaters should be allowed to reach. Not when he’s… been the elder brother of five.

Tsunami has seen some of the worst things happen to his siblings. Tetsunosuke has always been sickly and would often fall to the latest strain of the flu circulating at school, then spreading it to their other siblings while himself getting put through misery by the virus. Shinjuko would hallucinate the spirits of the dead and hear voices that weren’t there. Yoko would pull away from their own parents, clawing her way out, scratching herself away from their embrace because she was suffocating and scared the spirits of her nightmares would strangle her.

It’s all coming back to him now. The sand-pale skin, the laboured breathing, the half-closed foggy eyes – it’s all here. He’s seen them all on his siblings’ desperate faces, reflected in his father’s glasses, reflected by the mirror as little Jousuke tried to get a look at what was happening while, unlike them, he’d never waver, never fall sick. He managed to forget it all until now; but now, he’s helplessly watching his own best friend go through the same incarnated nightmare. It’s a horrifying display of what humans can get through and… he wishes it on nobody, not even on his worst enemy.

He can’t get that damn fever to break. He’s been refreshing the cloth on his friend’s forehead continuously, making sure it’s as cold as possible without seeming like it’d cause frostbite (he’s gotten it before – he’d rather avoid it as much as he can, thank you), but it doesn’t do anything: the symptoms don’t weaken and he wonders when the spike is going to finally end, if it’s going to end. He’d usually try to be more optimistic than that, but he’s in very unfamiliar territories and the flashbacks from his childhood keep coming back when he tries to shove them away and focus on what’s at hand.

He knows he won’t be able to reduce it with just some cold water: he needs to get the medicine in the bathroom. Sure, it doesn’t seem like Tachimukai is conscious enough to even drink water, but just having the medicine will make him feel a little safer. Plus, he’d like to grab his phone so he can call someone in case things get extra bad (though, honestly, he doesn’t know who he’d call considering it’s like three in the morning and he hasn’t been hearing any party nearby), and he’d rather have medicine on hand for other things. Maybe give himself a pillow so the chair is more comfortable…

As soon as he gets up, however, something grabs his shirt and tries to pull him back down and into his seat. He looks back down to see the slightly horrifying vision of a hazed, cloudy-eyed boy who suddenly looks far younger than he usually does, as if slipping back into his past self, clearly in pain but trying to say something nonetheless. A wave of cold sweat goes down his back from the vision alone… but it does mean his friend may now be the right amount of conscious to know what he’s doing or where he even is.

But that’s when Tachimukai says the first understandable thing he’s said since their hell of a night began and it’s one whose tone Tsunami doesn’t like much. It’s said in a weak, raspy tone that’s so unfamiliar to his ears, slow and almost detached, with syllables that have trouble forming because the poor guy must be dehydrated beyond what both of them can imagine at the moment; but what he can’t doubt is that it’s a cry of despair.

“Please…” He sucks a hitched breath in, eyes wet and tears pouring from them. “Please don’t leave me…”

Jousuke knows that tone, that expression, that feeling he gets overwhelmed with. Ryuunosuke’s face flashes before his eyes for a moment before he’s sitting back down, hands cupping his friend’s shoulders, watching unfocused irises desperately try to adjust. Even through his hair, he can sense the fever raging under the skin. He doesn’t mind the gross sweatiness of a sick person’s hair, especially when he finally has the hope to communicate. It feels like it’s been days.

“Tachimukai, can you understand me?!” He shouldn’t be yelling, but it’s stronger than him.

“Why’re you l’vin…?”

That accent is… Is that Fukuoka dialect? He’s not sure if he’s ever heard Tachimukai speak in it. He may have kept a lot of his Okinawan accent himself, but his friend? He’s spoken like a Tokyoite as far as he’s known. It’s such a weird thing to hear him relapse into a dialect. He can’t remember that happening even five years ago. He has a vague memory of hearing it at his graduation ceremony, though.

“I’m just gonna fetch some things. I ain’t leaving you like that.”

The grip on his shirt loosens a little as the fog in his friend’s eyes disappears a little, not letting up entirely, but clearing just enough to finally look like he’s back to some extent of reason. It’s his one chance, he’d say.

“You mind if I just go grab my phone and some medicine for you? I promise I’ll be back in seconds.”

“A-ah, no, go for it, I…”

“I’m also bringing you a glass of water, dude. You sound like you’ve just gone through the desert.”

He holds his promise and runs outside the bedroom into his, almost dropping his phone as he grabs it from his nightstand, then rushing to the bathroom to get a box of medicine that looks like it could be useful in their current situation and, finally, get a full bottle of water and a glass. He must have run it all in less than twenty seconds considering he’s somehow a bit out of breath from the ordeal; but it’s fine. It’ll be all fine.

When he comes back, nothing has changed much, aside from his friend’s eyes who have finally cleared from most of the smog. The latter is sitting up, breathing still heavy and shuddering under its own weight, skin tone still pale with red splotches on the cheeks; but man, he seems conscious, and that’s more than enough for now. After what he’s just been through (he checks on his phone: he was there for at least a very long half an hour), he can’t ask for much else than some sort of relief.

Tsunami sits back down on the chair, pours his friend a glass of water and hands it to him.

“You must have a throat drier than the desert, so here you go, pal.”

As if starving for anything to drink (which he probably is, let’s be real here), Tachimukai anxiously takes it, hands trembling. Yeah, he may look less like he’s dying; he’s still not looking good by any means.

“I’ve also got you some fever reducers in case this happens again because, man, you scared the crap out of me.” Tsunami pours a second glass and hands his flatmate a pill. “Let’s spare us the trouble, okay?”

“Sorry for the trouble. I didn’t think it’d… get this bad.”

Okay, second good sign: the Fukuoka dialect has gone away too. He’d have usually not minded it, but if it mostly appears when Tachimukai is hotter than a furnace and hallucinating whatever he was seeing earlier, he’d rather not see it come back for a while – or ever, actually.

“Don’t stress it. I’m pretty sure you didn’t ask to be in that state.” Actually… “Just don’t get yourself _that_ sick, next time. That’s all.”

“…You should go back to bed, Tsunami. I’ll be fine.

Too bad _he_ doesn’t feel like he can go back to sleep, not when it was interrupted by this fiasco.

“That’s bold of you to say when you were the one begging me to stay, Tachi.”

His friend stares back at him, at first confused, then anxiously. He looks down almost right afterwards, hair hiding most of his face.

“…I said that?”

“You don’t remember?” Well, come to think of it… “Ain’t really a surprise, actually. You looked like you had seen death.”

“N-no, I don’t remember much… All I can guess is that I’ve caused you some problems.”

“Do you just… get that sort of fevers often?”

Tachi (the new nickname flows better on his tongue, Tsunami must admit) takes a little while to reply, as if thinking his answer through.

“It’s been a while since the last one, I think? They only happen when I’ve been tired for long periods of times. I should be fine by tomorrow.”

“You’re sure?”

A little smile. What he wouldn’t do for that little one to stay on…

“The fact you’ve helped me makes me sure, yes.”

“I suppose that’s a good sign, then! Still, can I ask you something real quick, Tachi? I’m sure you want to sleep and all, but… There’s something that’s been on my mind.”

“What’d that be?”

“For a while, you only said incoherent things, but at some point, you clearly asked me not to leave you. You seemed desperate, so…” His voice trails. “…Tachimukai? Is there something wrong?”

His friend has shrivelled on himself, almost like a hurt animal. He doesn’t like it a single bit, but… there’s no use in rushing, as much as his instincts want him to jump ahead and fix the uneasiness that’s settling in.

“I think I’m… so scared to be left alone again at times like that, that my fever started to speak for me. It must’ve felt weird for you to hear me say such a childish thing all of a sudden, but…”

“But what? It’s not childish to ask for someone to stay by your side while you’re having a terrible time. Hell, you’ve not seen yourself while you were in that state, but I’d have never left you alone for more than a couple seconds.”

“But—”

“What makes you think that asking for company is a bad thing, Tachi?”

“…I’d assume the fact I was left on my own for so long that I started to think I was automatically a burden. It hasn’t left yet. I just… expressed it when I’d have usually kept it to myself. Again, sorry for all the trouble, I’m not easy to deal with when I’m that sick and—”

“If you apologize _one more time_ , I swear I’ll knock you out so you get some sleep, dude.”

Tachi recoils back, but chuckles right afterwards.

“Dude, you’re _sick_. It’s time you think about yourself and realize I don’t mind helping you out. I’ve never minded, in fact, ever since we were in Raimon.”

The smile he gives him is a genuine one and, even if it’s a little pained and very much tired, it’s still the highlight of his night.

“I suppose that’s true… I should’ve known you of all people wouldn’t leave me, Tsunami.”

“That’s more like it! Now get some sleep. I…” A yawn escapes from his mouth, almost unhinging his jaw in the process (that may be dramatizing it, but it’s not that far from it). “I need my beauty sleep too. If you need help, text me, ’kay? G’dnight.”

“Works for me. Goodnight, Tsunami.”

Before he can truly leave, though, Jousuke feels one last pull on his shirt.

“Oh, and… thank you for sticking with me. Really.”

Time to give his best (tired) teethy grin.

“I could tell you the same, you know!” He ruffles his friend’s hair with his hand. “See you later.”

On that, Tsunami finally leaves, heart lighter than in the evening, holding onto his phone like a necessary timeline even as he goes bad to bed.


End file.
